. . . until the Grand Re-Opening of the Jean Cocteau Cinema, the movie theatre I bought a few months back in a fit of madness.

We've been busily refurbishing the theatre all that time. As late as a week ago, it looked as if a bomb had gone off in the lobby, and I was having a nervous breakdown. Things have finally started to come together, however, and my contractor (the amazing Marshall Thompson of Constructive Assets) and my manager (the astonishing Jon Bowman, founder of the Santa Fe Film Festival) both assure me that we will indeed be ready come the day. I certainly hope so. We've kept the theatre's wonderful old marquee, after replacing the old fluorescents with brighter LEDs, and the auditorium is more or less the same (though we've installed some wheelchair seating), but the lobby and concessions area has a bold new look, designed by the wonderfully talented Jayne Franck. Assuming our chairs and tables arrive on time, it should be spectacular...

The Jean Cocteau has been dark for seven years, since Trans-Lux closed all its theatres in April, 2006. To celebrate our return to life, and let the Santa Fe film-going community know that we're back, admission will be FREE to all shows during our first week.

FREE! FREE!! FREE!!!

We open on Friday, August 9, with two classic feature films: ORPHEUS, by Jean Cocteau, for whom our cinema is named, and FORBIDDEN PLANET, the classic MGM big-budget SF movie from 1956, which IMNSHO remains the best science fiction film ever made.

Both of them will be shown on our brand new (slightly larger and definitely brighter) screen, with our brand new digital projector(an NEC 900 Digital Projection System and Integrated Media Server) and our brand new upgraded sound system (Dolby Digital Surround Sound Processor CP650), so the picture quality and sound should be better than ever.

We will also be offering pizza, pastries, and the best popcorn in town (with parmesan) from our new art deco concession counter.

(No, the food and drink won't be free, that's just admission).

And we have some cool SURPRISES in store for that first week as well. So those of you in Santa Fe... or Albuquerque... or, hell, anywhere in driving distance, should make of point of turning up for our Grand Opening Week to see the new improved Jean Cocteau.

More on all this in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, our website is just up, so take a look. Be advised, website construction is still in progress, so a lot of our features are not working yet... but you can check out the general design, and get a peek at the posters for some of the films we've got booked for the weeks and months to come.